Is Digital actually better than Analog?

Pauly,

Harvard University School of medecine (early 50's)NEJM
Bell Labs
MIT
USC
repeating Harvards study---THX
A few more that have simply confirmed earlier Bell Labs findings in the 1940's

Scientifically proven. Its the information that motivated serious companies to spend serious money to try Quadraphonic, the boat anchor of home audio.

As for your overly simplistic view of what surround does for the audio signal, Well ten years from now you'll undertsand finally.

Nsgarch,

Nevertheless, a good two channel system in an acoustically adjusted listening room will produce all those secondary waves accurately and from the (seemingly) appropriate directions using only two speakers.

Sorry absolutely wishful thinking, counting on phantom speakers will never give consistent results like having real speakers. And there are toher factors that profundly affect 2 channel playback of digital in a very negative way.

no time to elaborate you won't believe me anyway.

I have a hunch that if and when wireless speaker technology improves to allow audiophile quality sound transmission, more people will be willing to try properly configured surround sound systems.

Aren't there already enough phase problems with 2 channel stereo?

I've never heard a multi channel system that didn't sound less artificial or incoherent then most 2 channel. It's fine for "shish, boom, bah!" noise making.. but I'm into the reproduction of music in my home. If I want something else I can go to the movie theater or club (I've heard psychedelic trance produced for a surround system and played back in a club specifically set up to do it. Awesome.)

Hey Nsgarch, it seems we both need to learn a lot about audio. Where did you get that silly notion that sound reflection and refraction should occur naturally when you can have it done artificially? ;-)

Good thing we both spell correctly, otherwise we would really have looked like idiots.

Regards
Paul

D_edwards, I'm not sure what you mean by:

"If you listen in two channel only, you are not getting the best digital has too offer. Infact you're getting the nasty end of the stick."

unless you're referring to multi-channel SACD.

However, I have experienced every derived-ambience/multi-channel processing technique that's been devised, including all those created by the film industry. Everything from the old sum-difference technique Newbee described thru SQ and Quadraphonic records (and tapes) and all the various permutations of "surround" starting with the first Lexicon 7.1 processors. In the late 60's, I participated in the first controlled study of human stereophonic perception while studying psychoacoustics at MIT (pre-multichannel of course, but we all had at least two ears;--)

After all that (and my reason for returning to a purely two channel source/playback arrangement,) it became clear to me that multichannel, from the simplest home surround to the most complex 500 channel arrays used now for computerized concert hall design, does one thing: it produces a virtual sound field -- it can reproduce a real one, or create a "designed" one. Nothing wrong with that (except for all the additional hardware,) and most effective when done in an anechoic space.

However, in a properly designed live-end/dead-end room and optimum speaker/listener placement, a two channel playback system will accurately re-produce an original (i.e. recorded in a real space) sound field. What it won't do (very well) is create virtual sound fields: computer games, HT surround sound, or "studio created" multi-channel. I did find "designed" or "studio mixed" multi-channel stimulating for a time. But for me, it added absolutely nothing to the performance -- the Art of music, or the impact/realism of the kind of movies I usually watch at home. Eventually the novelty of the "ping-pong effect" wore off. My listening room provides an excellent natural (as opposed to virtual) sound field without all the extra hardware, so that's where I wound up: I got bored with multi. Others may not.

Your comment:

"there are toher factors that profundly affect 2 channel playback of digital in a very negative way."

I don't understand. Maybe you could elaborate?
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